[MUSIC]. In order to understand where we're going,
it helps to take a look back. Many things in HTML can seem counter-intuitive, but walking
through some history and foundational knowledge will
provide some context for upcoming lessons. HTML is an initialism that stands for
hypertext markup language. It was originally designed to easily share
scientific research papers, which is why
professionals typically use terms like webpage to describe their creations. Hyper text basically just means any kind
of text that can be displayed on a computer
screen. But often times, the definition includes
the notion of linked documents.
This is how the web works. It's a network of information connected
via hyperlinks. It's worth noting here that this web of documents is just one part of the
Internet. The Internet is the global system of computer networks
and hardware on which the web is built. Now, let's talk about the other part of
HTML. The term markup language encompasses the
idea of computer code that describes the structure
of content. Imagine that you're creating a newspaper,
and that you need to organize it. First, you need to title the newspaper. Then you need to add a few sections for
different topics. Each of those sections needs a large headline, followed by a few smaller
headlines. Then, we need to add a few paragraphs and
photos. You'll find that building the structure of
a webpage is very similar.
When you're creating content, you'll need
to use HTML to break it up into sections, headlines,
paragraphs and so on. HTML allows us to describe structure but
this is actually a separate process from designing its visual
presentation with CSS. We'll learn more about that later. By describing the various parts of the
document with markup, web browsers can parse the structure and
understand its contents. Some popular web browsers you may have
heard of include Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer.
One thing to keep in mind is that HTML was not originally designed for complex web applications like Facebook or
Twitter. Rather, it evolved to serve that purpose. And, it's only recently that HTML has implemented features to serve these more
interactive environments. As we continue to learn more, you'll find
that web languages are just as flexible as they
are powerful..
